BBM Social Platform Beta SDK Confirmed for Q1 Release by RIM

Mike did a nice wrap up of the recent news in the BlackBerry Application Platform development offerings. There were some great announcements these past few weeks showing RIM really embracing new standards like HTML5, JavaScript, Adobe Flash and AIR, Java and OpenGL. Most of the news you already read here on BerryReview but there was one tidbit that stood out to me:

Last week at DEVCON Asia, we provided updates on several enhancements to the BlackBerry smartphone platform. We previewed what’s coming soon with the BlackBerry® 6.1 platform, including OpenGL®-ES2.0, Support for Digital Compass (enabling augmented reality), new location and user interface APIs. We also provided an update on the highly anticipated BBM™ Social Platform, confirming BETA SDK availability in Q1 of this year.

When RIM first announced the BBM Social Platform it was scheduled to be released in “Spring 2011.” Spring 2011 starts on March 20th so RIM confirming a release in Q1 could mean we will see it sometime between March 20th and the end of March. When RIM showed off the Social Platform at DevCon I was really excited and I really cannot wait to see what developers do with this. Essentially it will let them build in a social network and chat into ANY application!

So far this is what we know the BBM Social Platform will allow for:

BBM contact list, user profiles and invitations

Invite BBM contacts to download your app or initiate a social interaction within your app

Determine which BBM contact has downloaded your app

Access user profile info such as avatar, status and location

Application box in user profiles

Add a customizable application box to a user’s BBM profile to broadcast achievements or provide updates

Groups

Create BBM groups specific to your application

Content/chat from application to BBM

Initiate embedded chats with BBM contacts from within your app

Share content with BBM contacts from within your apps

Content/chat from application to application

Create sub-communities within your application, even if the users are not pre-existing BBM contacts

Enable social interactions within your sub-communities

Streaming data between applications

Stream data between users of your applications for real-time use cases such as communication, gaming and location tracking

This is the type of integration that RIM needs to have in its apps, not only to have great apps but to attract app developers.

Having embedded chat within an application could open up a lot of possibilities and should even further make BBM one of the main attractions of the Blackberry smartphone. Once Blackberries have the horsepower to run some decent games, this integration will be crucial.. you could choose from your BBM list who you want to challenge for a deathmatch lol.

I’ve long held that BBM is the killer app for BlackBerries. It’s the one tactile thing BBs do that no other phone does. Yeah, there’s a million and one chat clients but there’s only one BBM and it is baked into every BB.

RIM will lose if they don’t add video chat to BBM to compete with Apple’s FaceTime. This is a glaring deficiency missing from BlackBerrys. I assume the PlayBook will have some video chat features since it sports a HD front facing camera, but RIM should seriously think about putting two cameras on upcoming phones and BBM video chat. With Apple selling 16 million units in just one quarter, the number of users with FaceTime enabled devices will reach critical mass. BBM still has potential to keep its lead, but RIM needs to start putting video into the hands of the populace ASAP.